Thank you all for your encouraging, thoughtful replies! We took it out again this morning, and it was much less stressful than our maiden voyage. My wife told me that we've been riding together on singles for so long that she could anticipate what I would do. It helped a lot to have her stay on the pedals when stationary. Because she's light, I can use muscle to make up for what I lack in finesse in balancing the bike on stops & starts. Hopefully I won't need to after we get more seat time. I did learn to get both feet on the ground quickly when stopped!

On a technical note, I took off the front Phil brake & took it apart. The disc is in fine shape but the aluminum friction surfaces are glazed. As Steve noted, the brake levers are duplexed. They were set up with the left controlling the disc brakes and the right doing the cantis. This was bizarre: even when they were brought into adjustment, modulation front-to-rear was impossible. I removed the front disc & cable and ran the front canti cable to the left lever. Now the left lever controls the front canti and the rear disc, while the right controls the rear canti. This made a huge improvement in the braking power and feel. Steve is right about it being over-equipped with brakes. The cantis are more than adequate all by themselves. I know I should abandon the Phil brakes, but they are so flippin' cool! At least I'm going to clean off the friction surfaces & see just how good they could be before I turn them into desk jewelry.

Again, thank you all!